Rosterfy allows you to communicate with your volunteers in various ways from within the platform. From manual one off emails, to automatic emails throughout the volunteer journey, Rosterfy's email tool has you covered.
IN THIS ARTICLE:
Email Settings
Rosterfy allows you to customise your communication settings within the platform, for emails this includes:
- From name
- Reply to address
- Email banner
- Email templates, for different stages of the volunteer journey
By default all emails will be sent from noreply@rosterfy.com with the From Name defaulting to {Account Name} Via Rosterfy. If you wish to send emails using your own domain you will need to contact Rosterfy Support. We can unlock this feature for you and supply your domain admin with DNS and DKIM information to add to your account.
To access your email settings, navigate to Settings > Organization Settings.
Then select the Communication tab from the top menu.
Email Templates
Email templates allow you to write content and save it for later use, they can be used in many ways, including:
- Sending out emails in bulk, for example before an event or shift
- Scheduling emails to be sent in the future
- When any automation is triggered, including:
- Registering for your account or a shift
- Checking in or out
- Completing a training module
- Reminders to complete a form or sign up to a shift
- And many more
For more information on email templates, take a look at the Email Templates article.
Sending Emails
Sending emails manually from Rosterfy follows a consistent process, regardless of who the emails are intended for. Here are some helpful examples to guide you in determining the recipients for your emails:
- Emailing Users manually
- Emailing your User Database
- Emailing a Group of Users
- Emailing specific Events, Shifts or Roles
For information about automated emails, take a look at the Automations article.
Emailing Users manually
To manually send an email in Rosterfy, you can follow these simple steps:
- Navigate to the Communications Tab > Send Communication, you will have the option to select the type of communication, select Email.
The same content screen will display anytime you send emails in Rosterfy.
You can define the following option on all emails sent from within Rosterfy:
Template: The content of the email can be manually typed, be a pre saved template or a combination of the two.
Type: Transactional or Marketing emails for unsubscribe regulations.
Note: If a user has unsubscribed from receiving the specific type of email you are sending, they will not receive it. Make sure to comply with any regulatory requirements your organisation must follow when sending emails to users who have opted out.
For more information regarding this, take a look at Unsubscribing from Emails.
Branding: You can select to use specific branding for your email, the default brand is set in the Communication menu within Organization Settings, additional brands can be created within the Branding menu.
Subject: This is the text that will appear as the subject line in the recipient's email program.
Content: This section allows you to create the main body of the email that will be sent to recipients. You have the flexibility to include text, images, videos, links, tables, clickable buttons, and mail merge tags to make your emails informative and engaging.
For more information on these, take a look at mail merge tags and creating buttons in emails.
- After you have completed crafting the email content, proceed by clicking Next at the bottom of the page. This will take you to the Recipients page where you can select the users you wish to send the email to.
- Select Add Recipients, a side bar will open with the User Search. You can search for the User/s, or filter your Users with the filters available.
Drag and drop the User/s you wish to email into the Recipients list, you can then preview the email for those Users.
Note: If you want to communicate with someone who does not have a Rosterfy account, you will need to check out, Emailing a user without a Rosterfy Account.
- The Confirm page will outline the subject of the email and the number of recipients you intend to send this communication to, you can either send it immediately or schedule for later.
If you would like to schedule it for later, select the checkbox and input the date and time you would like it to be sent. When ready, click Confirm and Send.
A notification will appear to confirm the communication has been successful.
Emails - Frequently Asked Questions
1. How can I cancel a scheduled communication?
2. Can I send an email to someone without a Rosterfy account?
3. How many emails can I send at once?
4. How to segment users so I can send emails in bulk?
5. How can I view the email history?
6. What do the email bounce definitions mean?
7. What are the differences between Marketing and Transactional email types?
8. What do I need to know about Users Unsubscribing from emails?
9. How do mail merge tags work?
10. How can I add a button to emails?
11. How can I view emails that have been sent to a specific user?
1. How can I cancel a scheduled communication?
Once an email has been scheduled you have the option to View or Cancel it. You can find your scheduled emails by navigating to Send Communications > Emails and clicking Scheduled from the top menu.
To cancel the scheduled email, click on the More Actions button and select Cancel, you will be prompted to confirm your cancellation, select Yes.
The scheduled communication will cancel immediately and cannot be recovered.
2. Can I send an email to someone without a Rosterfy account?
Rosterfy is not set up for you to add guest email addresses to communications, however it does allow you to use Automations to notify non Users of candidate activity.
For example, an alert that an account was created, or registration to an event can be sent to an email address that does not belong to a User in Rosterfy.
For more information on setting this up, check out the Automations or Assigning a Notifier articles.
3. How many emails can I send at once?
To prevent your emails from being marked as spam by mail providers, Rosterfy has a limit of 1500 recipients per email send. If you need to reach more than 1500 Users, you can achieve this by using Filters or Groups to segment your email list effectively.
4. How to segment users so I can send emails in bulk?
The steps below will guide you through creating Groups from your current User listing:
- Select the Users module, the click Users.
- Use the Advanced Filters to narrow down the list of users you want to group together
In this example we have filtered all Users over the age of 18. - Select Actions > Add Users to > User Group.
- In the Export Users to User Group window, select an existing User Group or create a new group, then select who this is being applied to, select All listed Users.
- The number of Users being updated will show at the bottom of the window, once you are happy with the selection, click Export > Yes.
To ensure emails are not classified as Spam, Rosterfy limits email sends to 1500 recipients. If you need to segment your Groups further to reach 1500 users, follow these additional steps:
- Navigate to the Users tab > Groups.
- Select the group you wish to segment, click More Actions > Split Group into Segments.
- You can input the number of Users you would like in each group. For email purposes, ensure this is less than 1500, then click Split.
Once you have finished segmenting your Users, check out Emailing a Group of Users, for how to send to each group.
5. How can I view the Email History?
Rosterfy tracks all email communications that are sent, and stores a 12 month history within the platform.
To access the history of emails, navigate to Communications > Email and select History from the top menu.
To find out more about Email History, check out the Email History and Engagement Tracking article.
6. What do the email bounce definitions mean?
You may notice in your Email History that some emails show a bounced status, this can be due to a number of reasons, such as:
- Incorrect email address
- The recipient's mailbox is full
- The email was too large
- The attachment was not accepted, etc
The Status field will indicate the cause of the bounce. Bounces can be categorised into two main types: hard bounces and soft bounces. Here is a comprehensive list of the bounce descriptions you might encounter:
Hard Bounce: To resolve this issue, it is recommended to remove the email address from your mailing list for future communications and reach out to the User to provide a new email address.
|
Bounced Display Reason |
Description |
|
Permanent: General |
No reason specified for the bounce |
|
Permanent: NoEmail |
This email address does not exist |
|
Permanent: Suppressed |
This address is on the Amazon SES suppression list because of recent history |
|
Permanent: OnAccountSuppressionList |
Amazon SES suppressed sending to this address because it is on the Account Level Suppression List |
Soft Bounce: If there is an issue preventing the email from being delivered, you can use the descriptions provided to help you identify and resolve the problem.
|
Bounced Display Reason |
Description |
|
Undetermined: Undetermined |
The message didn’t contain enough information to determine the reason |
|
Transient: General |
General Bounce, Out of Office message, etc. |
|
Transient: MailboxFull |
Recipient’s inbox is full |
|
Transient: MessageTooLarge |
The email you sent was too large |
|
Transient: ContentRejected |
The email includes content that the provider doesn’t allow |
|
Transient: AttachmentRejected |
The attachment was rejected, too large, incorrect file type, etc. |
7. What are the differences between Marketing and Transactional email types?
Rosterfy categorises emails into 3 email types:
Marketing Emails: Any email sent that primarily contains commercial message or content intended for a commercial purpose is considered a marketing email and must follow local laws. An example of this is a newsletter. Marketing emails are generally sent to groups of contacts.
Transactional Email: One-to-One emails that contain information that completes a transaction or process the recipient has started with you. Transactional emails are triggered by a User’s specific action and contain only critical, relevant information to the receiver. A common example is after a User creates a profile they receive a welcome email, confirming their profile has been created. Transactional emails are sent to individuals rather than a large list of recipients.
System Notifications: Messages generated by the system in response to a User's actions. An example of a System Notification is the Forgot Password email. It's important to note that these notifications cannot be unsubscribed from.
By default Users are opted into Transactional emails in the system, however they must choose to opt in for Marketing emails when creating their User profile. They can update this information on the Portal in My Profile > Permissions at any time.
Note: When you send a Marketing type email, any User that has not subscribed to Marketing emails will be automatically excluded.
8. What do I need to know about Users Unsubscribing from emails?
June 1st 2024 saw a change to Google and Yahoo email sender requirements.
If you’re new to one-click unsubscribe, we’ve got you covered. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know to comply with sender requirements and guarantee a top-notch experience for your users.
We have made some updates and added a few new features to handle this new requirement, however if you are using the out of the box permission form in the Users Profile section, then no action is needed by you.
If you are using a custom permissions form or would like to know more about what changes we have made, check out the Unsubscribing from Emails article.
9. How do mail merge tags work?
Mail merge tags enable you to customise your emails or email templates for every recipient.
When you send out your emails, Rosterfy will merge your email content with information from the mail merge tag, such as the User's First Name, ensuring that each user receives a personalised email.
Within Rosterfy, you can use mail merge tags to generate information such as Event and Shift details, Confirmation or Withdrawal links, etc. on your email communications.
A great example of this, is you can allow users to confirm/withdraw shifts via email, updating their status on a roster without having to log in to Rosterfy.
For more information on the mail merge tags that are available in Rosterfy and instructions on how to create new mail merge tags, check out the Mail Merge Tags article.
10. How can I add a button to emails?
To draw your Users' attention to important links or actions in your emails, you have the option to include HTML buttons in your email content or templates.
Within the Content section of your email or template, navigate to the WYSIWYG editor and select Add Button. This will prompt a pop-up where you can input the necessary information for your button.
You can customise the text that will appear, along with the colour and alignment of the button.
11. How can I view emails that have been sent to a specific user?
All communication sent from the Rosterfy, including emails, are tracked and can be found on the User's Profile.
To view the User's communication history:
- Navigate to Users > Users.
- Locate the User and click More Actions > View Profile.
- Select Communications from the left menu options, all communications sent to this User will be shown here.